Somerset Evergreens Vs Venturers, Sunday August 18th

Venturers 86, Somerset Evergreens 87-5

It is not uncommon for a side that has failed to win to speak of a moral victory. We are not claiming that. What we have here is a moral tie. And if you think those can’t happen, have a word with the nearest New Zealander.

Simon never bats when he wins the toss, ever since the time he did and a few minutes later we were 2 for 2. He is somehow worried that if he does it again we’ll be 3 for 3. But he lost the toss, and we were put in, and a few minutes later we were 4 for 4. Chandrabhan miscued to mid-on; Charles, feet frozen, was nowhere near the off-cutter that clipped his off stump; Olly tried to cut a full straight ball; James Rich played back when he should have played forward. Evergreens switched to their gentler slow bowlers, presumably with the idea of giving us some runs, but if they wanted to do that they needed to bowl worse. Maurice, for example, although bowling very slowly and not spinning it, kept bowling straight on a good length, so Simon and Ian treated him with caution. It was a while before we lost any more wickets, though, so the score did gradually mount up to the high forties. Then Simon sliced a catch to gully. Muhammad looked a little more comfortable, in fact, and although Ian never really got going he wasn’t in trouble either. Around this point the wicket-keeper dropped a ball Muhammad had left, and it clunked the helmet. This gave us five runs and gave Steve a headache, because he was scoring and didn’t know what symbol to put in the bowling analysis for five penalties (they don’t count as byes). Ian got some more support from James Reith after Muhammad had got out, very much leg before, but when James missed one it all fell apart very quickly. Bruce was bowled off his pads and both Steve and Gregory played inside straight balls. Ian was left stranded on 36: seven of us (the top four and the bottom three) had made two between us, one by Chandrabhan and one by Bruce.

We do have some bowling, though. As we had been bowled out in the 33rd over, they had 47 overs to make the runs in, failing which the match would be drawn if we hadn’t bowled them out. We could hardly expect to keep them to 86 or less if we bowled 47 overs, so the draw was unlikely unless it rained – there were some showers. One opener, wandering down the pitch, was very nearly run out by Simon’s direct hit: in fact, we thought we had got him and so did he at first, but it made no difference because he was bowled by Chandrabhan soon afterwards. James Reith and Chandrabhan reeled off a dozen overs for seventeen runs. Maybe 1.85 runs per over was a challenging rate after all. The introduction of Olly eased things slightly in terms of run rate because he bowled a couple of wides in his first over, but he also got a wicket, and his next two over were maidens. James finished his eight overs having conceded only 14. Gregory’s first over was unpromising but yielded only a couple of runs.

During the following over the usually reliable number four batsman was struck squarely, though fortunately not hard, on the ear by a perfectly normal return from the field, which he simply ran into. A quick blast from the cold spray in our first-aid kit brought about his recovery, but he may have been disoriented by the spray. He certainly chose the right ball from Gregory to hit, but he missed it. Alarmed by the consequences of such ambition, the fifth-wicket pair abandoned all attempt to score off Gregory, who thus conceded only nine runs in eight overs, three of them wides. With Muhammad being only slightly more generous, the scoring rate dropped even lower, barely above one and half runs an over. Steve and James Rich were particularly alert in the field. In the thirtieth over, Muhammad bowled the opener for 11; the score at this point was 47-4. But they still had seventeen overs to get forty. Gregory was out of overs: we had to try Bruce or Steve. We tried Bruce. He does get wickets, which was what we needed; and he did get one, the sort of LBW decision where the batsman just walks straight off after missing it. But he also conceded some runs: ten from his first over. His second was a maiden, but the shackles had been loosened, and the new pair calmly collected what was available. Chandrabhan was brought back to bowl the thirty-ninth over, to no avail. Bruce bowled the fortieth. Off the last ball of it, they needed three. The batsman hit the ball out to long-on and tried for a second on Chandrabhan’s arm. The throw beat him, but the bowler fumbled it and the batsman scrambled home to level the scores.

But it wasn’t a 40-over match. They still had seven overs to make the last run, and they got it off the third ball.